Traffic & Transport
A year after nationalisation, is South Western Railway delivering? | Rail transport
South Western Railway’s newest train, wrapped in union jack-inspired Great British Railways livery, may divide opinion on aesthetics, but the interior is certainly an upgrade: air-conditioned carriages, more space and greater passenger capacity.
For ministers, the fact that it is the 45th Arterio model brought into service since the SWR network was nationalised is vindication of the GBR approach.
As the first operator to be renationalised under Labour’s planned reforms, SWR has attracted some scrutiny. Ministers said its GBR badge was a right to be earned, only for punctuality to plunge amid a cascade of failures of tracks, trains and staffing.
However, exactly 12 months on, SWR has reached the threshold where half – and soon a majority – of the new £1bn fleet of 90 commuter trains is running after years of delay since the order was placed under the old privatised and fragmented system.
Speaking at the launch at London Waterloo, Peter Hendy, the rail minister, said the accelerated rollout since May 2025 showed the difference reforms were already making. A single managing director is responsible for both track and train and is “incentivised on running a decent service” rather than operating to the letter of a contract.
Nationalisation was “cutting red tape that held the railway back for decades”, Lord Hendy said. A variety of technical problems had delayed the introduction of the SWR trains. They were ordered in the last decade, with the first models built six years ago, but were largely languishing in the sidings as the last private operator, First Group, grappled with union objections and its contractual demands.
Only six were running when the state took direct control. “A year on, we’ve got half these new trains in service,” he said. “They’ve got more capacity – they’re 10 coaches, not eight – and they’re more reliable. The old ones have gone to a knacker’s yard.”
The managing director of SWR and Network Rail Wessex, Lawrence Bowman, has, Hendy said, “had to work really hard; he’s had to recruit more staff because the previous owners left it with insufficient drivers, and he’s on the road to recovery. It’s not there yet – but we’re going in the right direction.”
He admitted there remains “all sorts of things wrong, because the incentive on the previous owners was not the incentive to do things for passengers”.
He said that, at one point, 80% of the trains at Waterloo would run all day with the same driver and guard and now it is 8%. “To save a few drivers and a few hundred thousand quid, they crosslinked all of the staff rosters – so when it all goes wrong, quite often the train’s in the platform, the driver’s at Epsom and the guard’s at Staines. And the result is, when anything goes wrong, this place is wiped out.”
Hendy said work to restore SWR to full reliability would include getting more drivers in and revising rosters and timetables. “And that’s what public ownership’s going to do … attention is going to be paid to making the railway run better. Not what the contract gives you five bob for, but actually running it so that people can rely on it.”
He said that nationalised companies would still “have to run it as a business: it’s got income from taxpayers and it’s going to come from passengers and they want to see their money well spent. But if [Bowman] improves the reliability of the service, the revenue goes up.”
Bowman himself said that still involves major infrastructure upgrades, recruiting more staff and keeping customers better informed, and a new timetable. “We have a lot more to do, but we are making steady progress towards building a more reliable and resilient railway for the future,” he said.
Hendy said he also cares that the train still has South Western written on the side, “because that’s this part of GBR, and I want people to recognise that [Bowman] is the man in charge”.
Does that mean other brands will persist, when companies such as Avanti come under the GBR banner? “Avanti, we’re going to sell it for charities and see whether anybody wants it,” he jokes. “The Gerald Ratner of railways.”
The GBR train livery, drawn up on the cheap by ministers and advisers in the Department for Transport, has attracted attention – some incredulous. It was described by one insider as “more GB News than GBR”, while the architecture and design critic Cath Slessor said the “effortfully deconstructed livery looks like an explosion in a union jack factory – and not in a good way”.
Hendy remains unrepentant: “It is good design; it’s got the right lettering, Rail Alphabet 3, it’s got the double arrow. It’s in the right typeface. That’ll do me.
“The unity of the UK is quite an important concept. It was always going to be red, white and blue and I think it’s fine.”
Traffic & Transport
Extra EU border checks suspended at Dover as travellers face delays in heat | Transport
French police have temporarily suspended extra EU border checks at the port of Dover as thousands of holidaymakers faced long delays in the hot weather.
Wait times of more than two hours were reported at the terminal in Kent for the cross-Channel ferry to France. The delays come a month after the EU’s entry-exit system (EES), which replaces passport stamps with a digital registration, became fully operational.
The port of Dover said Saturday marked the “first peak period” since the new procedures were introduced.
Describing the situation as “challenging”, the port of Dover posted on X: “We are pleased that Police Aux Frontières (PAF) have responded positively by invoking the article 9 clause of the EES regulations.” This allows for checks to be temporarily relaxed.
“While conventional border checks will still be undertaken, this will now enable PAF to significantly reduce the border processing time,” the statement added.
“We will be working with PAF and all our partners to get customers into and through the port as swiftly as possible and keep the roads clear for our local community.”
Temperatures were expected to reach up to 29C in parts of England on Saturday. Images at Dover showed long queues of cars at the congested terminal, which is the departure point for ferries to Calais in northern France, a popular route for British tourists, especially at the start of the half-term school holidays.
The port said passengers who missed their ferry crossing as a result of waiting times would be able to travel on the next available crossing. It warned drivers to stay in their cars and treat its staff with “kindness and respect”, adding that “unacceptable behaviour towards staff will not be tolerated”.
EasyJet has called on EU countries – with a particular focus on Spain – to drop the new rules over fears that holidaymakers could lengthy delays, with the company’s chief executive, Kenton Jarvis, saying the additional checks would “put [holidaymakers] off” travelling.
The EES is used by EU countries – with the exception of Ireland and Cyprus – and other countries that are part of the Schengen free movement area, including Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.
Non-EU passengers and some transport providers have raised concerns about the new system, especially in Britain, which left the EU in 2020 under Brexit.
The system, which became fully operational in April, replaces passport stamps with a digital registration to make the EU’s borders more secure, more efficient and stronger against irregular migration, according to the European Commission.
Temperatures are forecast to rise throughout the bank holiday weekend, with record-breaking May temperatures as high as 33C (91F) expected in parts of the UK.
The Met Office has issued amber heat health alerts, which indicate a possible risk to life as well as potential damage to properties, significant travel delays and power cuts. They are in place for the East Midlands, West Midlands, the east of England, London and the south-east until 5pm on Wednesday.
The UK is forecast to have its hottest ever day in May over the long weekend, marginally exceeding the 32.8C recorded around parts of London, West Sussex and Kent more than 80 years ago, on 29 May 1944.
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Traffic & Transport
Britain braces for busy roads as May bank holiday temperatures set to pass 30C | Transport
An especially hot late May bank holiday weekend is expected to bring even more traffic to the roads than usual at the start of the half-term break taking place in parts of the UK, motoring organisations have warned.
With temperatures forecast to pass 30C in places by Monday, coastal roads are predicted to be among the busiest, with long queues expected towards seaside resorts and the Port of Dover, where delays in border checks are compounding the holiday rush.
The RAC expects almost 19 million drivers to hit Britain’s roads over the long weekend, 1 million more than the same holiday period in 2025.
Its polling found almost four in 10 drivers intend to take a leisure trip, with the heaviest traffic likely to be on Friday and Saturday, although about 5% of drivers said high fuel prices would keep them at home. The average price of petrol across the UK is 158.52p, the highest since December 2022, according to the RAC.
The AA said its polling suggested day trips to the coast would account for a bigger proportion of leisure journeys than overnight getaways, although shopping centres and retail parks would draw in more traffic overall.
It warned of traffic jams heading towards resorts on the east and north-west coasts of England and queues on roads leading to the south-east and Cornwall, including the A303, M5 and A38.
The parking company RingGo said its data across previous bank holidays suggested Saturday would be the busiest day of the long weekend for seaside day trips, with Bournemouth normally showing the biggest rise in visitors.
The transport analytics company Inrix said the worst traffic this weekend would be on the M1, M25, M5 and M6.
Ferry passengers travelling through the Port of Dover have been warned to expect long queues for border checks with the implementation of the EU’s entry-exit system (EES).
About 18,000 travellers are due between Friday and Sunday, with departures peaking on Saturday morning.
The EES software for the French borders is yet to be fully operational, meaning police are still conducting manual checks despite expensively installed kiosks at the port, with hour-long processing waits reported at the border by 6am on Friday.
Despite concerns about EES delays at airports, and uncertainty about jet fuel because of the Iran war, up to 2 million people are expected to fly abroad from the UK in coming days. While airlines are reporting slow forward bookings for summer flights, demand appears to have held up for half-term breaks.
The travel association Abta said its members were reporting strong demand for half-term trips to the Mediterranean, particularly to Spain and its islands, Italy, Portugal, Croatia and Greece.
Its chief executive, Mark Tanzer, said: “In the face of economic and geopolitical challenges, people are still getting away on their holidays this May and making the most of some excellent deals.”
According to the aviation analysts Cirium, more than 12,000 flights are scheduled to take off from the UK over the weekend – more than 2 million seats – with Friday the busiest day for travel and Palma de Mallorca the biggest single destination after the Irish capital, Dublin.
Network Rail said most of Britain’s rail network would be open for passengers over the bank holiday weekend, despite £64m worth of planned engineering work.
Some services will be disrupted, including parts of the east coast mainline between London and Edinburgh, with rail replacement buses between York and Darlington from Saturday to Monday.
Buses will also replace trains between Newport and Bristol Parkway on the Great Western mainline. Thameslink trains will not run through central London, meaning passengers will have to start and end journeys at either King’s Cross St Pancras or London Bridge.
Strikes will disrupt some rail services in the Midlands and between Birmingham, Liverpool and London. Members of the TSSA union are to strike at West Midlands and London North Western railways, reducing timetables on Friday and Saturday.
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A year after nationalisation, is South Western Railway delivering? | Rail transport
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